Old Arrangements of the House—Justice in Bygone Times—Court of Session Garland—Parliament House Worthies.

The Parliament House, a spacious hall with an oaken arched roof, finished in 1639 for the meetings of the Estates or native parliament, and used for that purpose till the Union, has since then, as is well known, served exclusively as a material portion of the suite of buildings required for the supreme civil judicatory—the Court of Session. This hall, usually styled the Outer House, is now a nearly empty space, but it was in a very different state within the recollection of aged practitioners. So lately as 1779, it retained the divisions, furnishings, and other features which it had borne in the days when we had a national legislature—excepting only that the portraits of sovereigns which then adorned the walls had been removed by the Earl of Mar, to whom Queen Anne had given them as a present when the Union was accomplished.

The divisions and furniture, it may be remarked, were understood to be precisely those which had been used for the Court of Session from an early time; but it appears that such changes were made when the parliament was to sit as left the room one free vacant space. The southern portion, separated from the rest by a screen, accommodated the Court of Session. The northern portion, comprising a sub-section used for the Sheriff-court, was chiefly a kind of lobby of irregular form, surrounded by little booths, which were occupied as taverns, booksellers’ shops, and toy-shops, all of very flimsy materials.[90] These krames, or boxes, seem to have been established at an early period, the idea being no doubt taken from the former condition of Westminster Hall. John Spottiswoode of Spottiswoode, who, in 1718, published the Forms of Process before the Court of Session, mentions that there were ‘two keepers of the session-house, who had small salaries to do all the menial offices in the house, and that no small part of their annual perquisites came from the kramers in the outer hall.’

JUSTICE IN BYGONE TIMES.

The memories which have been preserved of the administration of justice by the Court of Session in its earlier days are not such as to increase our love for past times.[91] This court is described by Buchanan as extremely arbitrary, and by a nearly contemporary historian (Johnston) as infamous for its dishonesty. An advocate or barrister is spoken of by the latter writer as taking money from his clients, and dividing it among the judges for their votes. At this time we find the chancellor (Lord Fyvie) superintending the lawsuits of a friend, and writing to him the way and manner in which he proposed they should be conducted. But the strongest evidence of the corruption of ‘the lords’ is afforded by an act of 1579, prohibiting them ‘be thame selffis or be their wiffis or servandes, to tak in ony time cuming, buddis, bribes, gudes, or geir, fra quhatever persone or persons presentlie havand, or that heirefter sall happyne to have, any actionis or caussis pursewit befoir thame, aither fra the persewer or defender,’ under pain of confiscation. Had not bribery been common amongst the judges, such an act as this could never have been passed.

In the curious history of the family of Somerville there is a very remarkable anecdote illustrative of the course of justice at that period. Lord Somerville and his kinsman, Somerville of Cambusnethan, had long carried on a litigation. The former was at length advised to use certain means for the advancement of his cause with the Regent Morton, it being then customary for the sovereign to preside in the court. Accordingly, having one evening caused his agents to prepare all the required papers, he went next morning to the palace, and being admitted to the regent, informed him of the cause, and entreated him to order it to be called that forenoon. He then took out his purse, as if to give a few pieces to the pages or servants, and slipping it down upon the table, hurriedly left the presence-chamber. The earl cried several times after him: ‘My lord, you have left your purse;’ but he had no wish to stop. At length, when he was at the outer porch, a servant overtook him with a request that he would go back to breakfast with the regent. He did so, was kindly treated, and soon after was taken by Morton in his coach to the court-room in the city. ‘Cambusnethan, by accident, as the coach passed, was standing at Niddry’s Wynd head, and having inquired who was in it with the regent, he was answered: “None but Lord Somerville and Lord Boyd;” upon which he struck his breast, and said: “This day my cause is lost!” and indeed it proved so.’ By twelve o’clock that day, Lord Somerville had gained a cause which had been hanging in suspense for years.

In those days both civil and criminal procedure was conducted in much the same spirit as a suit at war. When a great noble was to be tried for some monstrous murder or treason, he appeared at the bar with as many of his retainers, and as many of his friends and their retainers, as he could muster, and justice only had its course if the government chanced to be the strongest, which often was not the case. It was considered dishonourable not to countenance a friend in troubles of this kind, however black might be his moral guilt. The trial of Bothwell for the assassination of Darnley is a noted example of a criminal outbraving his judges and jury. Relationship, friendly connection, solicitation of friends, and direct bribes were admitted and recognised influences to which the civil judge was expected to give way. If a difficulty were found in inducing a judge to vote against his conscience, he might at least perhaps be induced by some of those considerations to absent himself, so as to allow the case to go in the desired way. The story of the abduction of Gibson of Durie by Christie’s Will, and his immurement in a Border tower for some weeks, that his voice might be absent in the decision of a case—as given in the Border Minstrelsy by Scott—is only incorrect in some particulars. (As the real case is reported in Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, it appears that, in September 1601, Gibson was carried off from the neighbourhood of St Andrews by George Meldrum, younger of Dumbreck, and hastily transported to the castle of Harbottle in Northumberland, and kept there for eight days.) But, after all, Scotland was not singular among European nations in these respects. In MoliÈre’s Misanthrope, produced in 1666, we find the good-natured Philinte coolly remonstrating with Alceste on his unreasonable resolution to let his lawsuit depend only on right and equity.

‘Qui voulez-vous donc, qui pour vous sollicite?’ says Philinte. ‘Aucun juge par vous ne sera visitÉ?’

‘Je ne remuerai point,’ returns the misanthrope.

Philinte. Votre partie est forte, et peut par sa cabale entrainer....

Alceste. Il n’importe....

Philinte. Quel homme!... On se riroit de vous, Alceste, si on vous entendoit parler de la faÇon. (People would laugh at you if they heard you talk in this manner.)

It is a general tradition in Scotland that the English judges whom Cromwell sent down to administer the law in Scotland, for the first time made the people acquainted with impartiality of judgment. It is added that, after the Restoration, when native lords were again put upon the bench, some one, in presence of the President Gilmour, lauding the late English judges for the equity of their proceedings, his lordship angrily remarked: ‘De’il thank them; a wheen kinless loons!’ That is, no thanks to them; a set of fellows without relations in the country, and who, consequently, had no one to please by their decisions.

After the Restoration there was no longer direct bribing, but other abuses still flourished. The judges were tampered with by private solicitation. Decisions went in favour of the man of most personal or family influence. The following anecdote of the reign of Charles II. rests on excellent authority: ‘A Scotch gentleman having entreated the Earl of Rochester to speak to the Duke of Lauderdale upon the account of a business that seemed to be supported by a clear and undoubted right, his lordship very obligingly promised to do his utmost endeavours to engage the duke to stand his friend in a concern so just and reasonable as his was; and accordingly, having conferred with his grace about the matter, the duke made him this very odd return, that though he questioned not the right of the gentleman he recommended to him, yet he could not promise him a helping hand, and far less success in business, if he knew not first the man, whom perhaps his lordship had some reason to conceal; “because,” said he to the earl, “if your lordship were as well acquainted with the customs of Scotland as I am, you had undoubtedly known this among others—Show me the man, and I’ll show you the law;” giving him to understand that the law in Scotland could protect no man if either his purse were empty or his adversaries great men, or supported by great ones.’[92]

One peculiar means of favouring a particular party was then in the power of the presiding judge: he could call a cause when he pleased. Thus he would watch till one or more judges who took the opposite view to his own were out of the way—either in attendance on other duties or from illness—and then calling the cause, would decide it according to his predilection. Even the first President Dalrymple, afterwards Viscount Stair, one of the most eminent men whom the Scottish law-courts have ever produced, condescended to favour a party in this way. An act enjoining the calling of causes according to their place in a regular roll was passed in the reign of Charles II.; but the practice was not enforced till the days of President Forbes, sixty years later. We have a remarkable illustration of the partiality of the bench in a circumstance which took place about the time of the Revolution. During the pleadings in a case between Mr Pitilloch, an advocate, and Mr Aytoun of Inchdairnie, the former applied the term briber to Lord Harcarse, a judge seated at the moment on the bench, and who was father-in-law to the opposite party. The man was imprisoned for contempt; but this is not the point. Not long after, in this same cause, Lord Harcarse went down to the bar in his gown, and pleaded for his son-in-law Aytoun!

About that period a curious indirect means of influencing the judges began to be notorious. Each lord had a dependant or favourite, generally some young relative, practising in the court, through whom it was understood that he could be prepossessed with a favourable view of any cause. This functionary was called a Peat or Pate, from a circumstance thus related in Wilkes’s North Briton: ‘One of the former judges of the Court of Session, of the first character, knowledge, and application to business, had a son at the bar whose name was Patrick; and when the suitors came about, soliciting his favour, his question was: “Have you consulted Pat?” If the answer was affirmative, the usual reply of his lordship was: “I’ll inquire of Pat about it; I’ll take care of your cause; go home and mind your business.” The judge in that case was even as good as his word, for while his brother-judges were robing, he would tell them what pains his son had taken, and what trouble he had put himself to, by his directions, in order to find out the real circumstances of the dispute; and as no one on the bench would be so unmannerly as to question the veracity of the son or the judgment of the father, the decree always went according to the information of Pat. At the present era, in case a judge has no son at the bar, his nearest relation (and he is sure to have one there) officiates in that station. But, as it frequently happens, if there are Pats employed on each side, the judges differ, and the greatest interest—that is, the longest purse—is sure to carry it.’

I bring the subject to a conclusion by a quotation from the Court of Session Garland: ‘Even so far down as 1737 traces of the ancient evil may be found. Thus, in some very curious letters which passed between William Foulis, Esq. of Woodhall, and his agent, Thomas Gibson of Durie, there is evidence that private influence could even then be resorted to. The agent writes to his client, in reference to a pending lawsuit (23rd November 1735): “I have spoken to Strachan and several of the lords, who are all surprised Sir F[rancis Kinloch] should stand that plea. By Lord St Clair’s advice, Mrs Kinloch is to wait on Lady Cairnie to-morrow, to cause her ask the favour of Lady St Clair to solicit Lady Betty Elphingston and Lady Dun. My lord promises to back his lady, and to ply both their lords, also Leven and his cousin Murkle.[93] He is your good friend, and wishes success; he is jealous Mrs Mackie will side with her cousin Beatie. St Clair says Leven[94] has only once gone wrong upon his hand since he was a Lord of Session. Mrs Kinloch has been with Miss Pringle, Newhall. Young Dr Pringle is a good agent there, and discourses Lord Newhall[95] strongly on the law of nature,” &c.

‘Again, upon the 23rd of January 1737, he writes: “I can assure you that when Lord Primrose left this town, he stayed all that day with Lord J[ustice] C[lerk],[96] and went to Andrew Broomfield at night, and went off post next morning; and what made him despair of getting anything done was, that it has been so long delayed, after promising so frankly, when he knew the one could cause the other trot to him like a penny-dog when he pleased. But there’s another hindrance: I suspect much Penty[97] has not been in town as yet, and I fancy it’s by him the other must be managed. The Ld. J[ustice] C[lerk] is frank enough, but the other two are —— clippies. I met with Bavelaw and Mr William on Tuesday last. I could not persuade the last to go to a wine-house, so away we went to an aquavity-house, where I told Mr Wm. what had passed, as I had done before that to Bavelaw. They seemed to agree nothing could be done just now, but to know why Lord Drummore[98] dissuaded bringing in the plea last winter. I have desired Lord Haining to speak, but only expect his answer against Tuesday or Wednesday.”

‘It is not our intention to pursue these remarks further, although we believe that judicial corruption continued long after the Union. We might adduce Lord President Forbes as a witness on this point, who, one of the most upright lawyers himself, did not take any pains to conceal his contempt for many of his brethren. A favourite toast of his is said to have been: “Here’s to such of the judges as don’t deserve the gallows.” Latterly, the complaint against the judges was not so much for corrupt dealing, with the view of enriching themselves or their “pet” lawyer, but for weak prejudices and feelings, which but ill accorded with the high office they filled.

‘These abuses, the recapitulation of which may amuse and instruct, are now only matter of history—the spots that once sullied the garments of justice are effaced, and the old compend, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the law,” is out of date.’

COURT OF SESSION GARLAND.

A curious characteristic view of the Scottish bench about the year 1771 is presented in a doggerel ballad, supposed to have been a joint composition of James Boswell and John Maclaurin,[99] advocates, and professedly the history of a process regarding a bill containing a clause of penalty in case of failure. This Court of Session Garland, as it is called, is here subjoined, with such notes on persons and things as the reader may be supposed to require or care for.

PART FIRST.

PART SECOND.

A few additions to the notes, in a more liberal space, will complete what I have to set down regarding the lawyers of the last age.

LOCKHART OF COVINGTON.[126]

Lockhart used to be spoken of by all old men about the Court of Session as a paragon. He had been at the bar from 1722, and had attained the highest eminence long before going upon the bench, which he did at an unusually late period of life; yet so different were those times from the present that, according to the report of Sir William Macleod Bannatyne to myself in 1833, Lockhart realised only about a thousand a year by his exertions, then thought a magnificent income. The first man at the Scottish bar in our day is believed to gain at least six times this sum annually. Lockhart had an isolated house behind the Parliament Close, which was afterwards used as the Post-office.[127] It was removed some years ago to make way for the extension of the buildings connected with the court; leaving only its coach-house surviving, now occupied as a broker’s shop in the Cowgate.

Mr Lockhart and Mr Fergusson (afterwards Lord Pitfour) were rival barristers—agreeing, however, in their politics, which were of a Jacobite complexion. While the trials of the poor forty-five men were going on at Carlisle, these Scottish lawyers heard with indignation of the unscrupulous measures adopted to procure convictions. They immediately set off for Carlisle, arranging with each other that Lockhart should examine evidence, while Fergusson pleaded and addressed the jury; and offering their services, they were gladly accepted as counsel by the unfortunates whose trials were yet to take place. Each exerted his abilities, in his respective duties, with the greatest solicitude, but with very little effect. The jurors of Carlisle had been so frightened by the Highland army that they thought everything in the shape or hue of tartan a damning proof of guilt; and, in truth, there seemed to be no discrimination whatever exerted in inquiring into the merits of any particular criminal; and it might have been just as fair, and much more convenient, to try them by wholesale or in companies. At length one of our barristers fell upon an ingenious expedient, which had a better effect than all the eloquence he had expended. He directed his man-servant to dress himself in some tartan habiliments, to skulk about for a short time in the neighbourhood of the town, and then permit himself to be taken. The man did so, and was soon brought into court, and accused of the crime of high treason, and would have been condemned to death had not his master stood up, claimed him as his servant, and proved beyond dispute that the supposed criminal had been in immediate attendance upon his person during the whole time of the Rebellion. This staggered the jury, and, with the aid of a little amplification from the mouth of the young advocate, served to make them more cautious afterwards in the delivery of their important fiat.

To show the estimation in which Lockhart of Covington was held as an advocate, the late Lord Newton, when at the bar, wore his gown till it was in tatters, and at last had a new one made, with a fragment of the neck of the original sewed into it, whereby he could still make it his boast that he wore ‘Covington’s gown.’

LORD KAMES.

This able judge and philosopher in advance of his time—for such he was—is described by his biographer, Lord Woodhouselee, as indulging in a certain humorous playfulness, which, to those who knew him intimately, detracted nothing from the feeling of respect due to his eminent talents and virtues. To strangers, his lordship admits, it might convey ‘the idea of lightness.’ The simple fact here shadowed forth is that Lord Kames had a roughly playful manner, and used phrases of an ultra-eccentric character. Among these was a word only legitimately applicable to the female of the canine species. The writer of the Garland introduces this characteristic phrase. When his lordship found his end approaching very near, he took a public farewell of his brethren. I was informed by an ear-and-eye witness, who is certain that he could not be mistaken, that, after addressing them in a solemn speech and shaking their hands all round, in going out at the door of the court-room he turned about, and casting them a last look, cried in his usual familiar tone: ‘Fare ye a’ weel, ye bitches!’ He died eight days after.

It was remarked that a person called Sinkum the Cawdy, who had a short and a long leg and was excessively addicted to swearing, used to lie in wait for Lord Kames almost every morning, and walk alongside of him up the street to the Parliament House. The mystery of Sterne’s little, flattering Frenchman, who begged so successfully from the ladies, was scarcely more wonderful than this intimacy, which arose entirely from Lord Kames’s love of the gossip which Sinkum made it his business to cater for him.

These are not follies of the wise. They are only the tribute which great genius pays to simple nature. The serenity which marked the close of the existence of Kames was most creditable to him, though it appeared, perhaps, in somewhat whimsical forms to his immediate friends. For three or four days before his death, he was in a state of great debility. Some one coming in, and finding him, notwithstanding his weakness, engaged in dictating to an amanuensis, expressed surprise. ‘How, man,’ said the declining philosopher, ‘would you ha’e me stay wi’ my tongue in my cheek till death comes to fetch me?’

LORD HAILES.

When Lord Hailes died, it was a long time before any will could be found. The heir-male was about to take possession of his estates, to the exclusion of his eldest daughter. Some months after his lordship’s death, when it was thought that all further search was vain, Miss Dalrymple prepared to retire from New Hailes, and also from the mansion-house in New Street, having lost all hope of a will being discovered in her favour. Some of her domestics, however, were sent to lock up the house in New Street, and in closing the window-shutters, Lord Hailes’s will dropped out upon the floor from behind a panel, and was found to secure her in the possession of his estates, which she enjoyed for upwards of forty years.

The literary habits of Lord Hailes were hardly those which would have been expected from his extreme nicety of phrase. The late Miss Dalrymple once did me the honour to show me the place where he wrote the most of his works—not the fine room which contained, and still contains, his books—no secluded boudoir, or den, where he could shut out the world, but the parlour fireside, where sat his wife and children.

[1868.—Now that the grave has for thirty years closed over Miss Dalrymple, it may be allowable to tell that she was of dwarfish and deformed figure, while amiable and judicious above the average of her sex. Taking into view her beautiful place of residence and her large wealth, she remarked to a friend one day: ‘I can say, for the honour of man, that I never got an offer in my life.’]

LORD GARDENSTONE.

This judge had a predilection for pigs. One, in its juvenile years, took a particular fancy for his lordship, and followed him wherever he went, like a dog, reposing in the same bed. When it attained the mature years and size of swinehood, this of course was inconvenient. However, his lordship, unwilling to part with his friend, continued to let it sleep at least in the same room, and, when he undressed, laid his clothes upon the floor as a bed to it. He said that he liked it, for it kept his clothes warm till the morning. In his mode of living he was full of strange, eccentric fancies, which he seemed to adopt chiefly with a view to his health, which was always that of a valetudinarian.[128]

LORD PRESIDENT DUNDAS.

This distinguished judge was, in his latter years, extremely subject to gout, and used to fall backwards and forwards in his chair—whence the ungracious expression in the Garland. He used to characterise his six clerks thus: ‘Two of them cannot read, two of them cannot write, and the other two can neither read nor write!’ The eccentric Sir James Colquhoun was one of those who could not read. In former times it was the practice of the Lord President to have a sand-glass before him on the bench, with which he used to measure out the utmost time that could be allowed to a judge for the delivery of his opinion. Lord President Dundas would never allow a single moment after the expiration of the sand, and he has often been seen to shake his old-fashioned chronometer ominously in the faces of his brethren when their ‘ideas upon the subject’ began, in the words of the Garland, to get vague and windy.

LORD MONBODDO.

Lord Monboddo’s motion for the enforcement of the bill, on account of its representing the value of a horse, is partly an allusion to his Gulliverlike admiration of that animal, but more particularly to his having once embroiled himself in an action respecting a horse which belonged to himself. His lordship had committed the animal, when sick, to the charge of a farrier, with directions for the administration of a certain medicine. The farrier gave the medicine, but went beyond his commission, in as far as he mixed it in a liberal menstruum of treacle in order to make it palatable. The horse dying next morning, Lord Monboddo raised a prosecution for its value, and actually pleaded his own cause at the bar. He lost the case, however; and is said to have been so enraged in consequence at his brethren that he never afterwards sat with them upon the bench, but underneath amongst the clerks. The report of this action is exceedingly amusing, on account of the great quantity of Roman law quoted by the judges, and the strange circumstances under which the case appeared before them.

Lord Monboddo, with all his oddities, and though generally hated or despised by his brethren, was by far the most learned and not the least upright judge of his time. His attainments in classical learning and in the study of the ancient philosophers were singular in his time in Scotland, and might have qualified him to shine anywhere. He was the earliest patron of one of the best scholars of his age, the late Professor John Hunter of St Andrews, who was for many years his secretary, and who chiefly wrote the first and best volume of his lordship’s Treatise on the Origin of Languages.

The manners of Lord Monboddo were not more odd than his personal appearance. He looked rather like an old stuffed monkey dressed in a judge’s robes than anything else. His face, however, ‘sicklied o’er’ with the pale cast of thought, bore traces of high intellect. So convinced is he said to have been of the truth of his fantastic theory of human tails, that whenever a child happened to be born in his house, he would watch at the chamber-door in order to see it in its first state, having a notion that the midwives pinched off the infant tails.

There is a tradition that Lord Monboddo attended and witnessed the catastrophe of Captain Porteous in 1736. He had just that day returned from completing his law education at Leyden, and taken lodgings near the foot of the West Bow, where at that time many of the greatest lawyers resided. When the rioters came down the Bow with their hapless victim, Mr Burnet was roused from bed by the noise, came down in his night-gown with a candle in his hand, and stood in a sort of stupor, looking on, till the tragedy was concluded.

PARLIAMENT HOUSE WORTHIES.

Scott has sketched in Peter Peebles the type of a class of crazy and half-crazy litigants who at all times haunt the Parliament House. Usually they are rustic men possessing small properties, such as a house and garden, which they are constantly talking of as their ‘subject.’ Sometimes a faded shawl and bonnet is associated with the case—objects to be dreaded by every good-natured member of the bar. But most frequently it is simple countrymen who become pests of this kind. That is to say, simple men of difficult and captious tempers, cursed with an overstrong sense of right or an overstrong sense of wrong, under which they would, by many degrees, prefer utter ruin to making the slightest concession to a neighbour. Ruined these men often are; and yet it seems ruin well bought, since they have all along had the pleasure of seeing themselves and their little affairs the subject of consideration amongst men so much above themselves in rank.

Peebles was, as we are assured by the novelist himself, a real person, who frequented the Edinburgh courts of justice about the year 1792, and ‘whose voluminous course of litigation served as a sort of essay piece to most young men who were called to the bar.’[129] Many persons recollect him as a tall, thin, slouching man, of homely outworn attire, understood to be a native of Linlithgow. Having got into law about a small house, he became deranged by the cause going against him, and then peace was no more for him on earth. He used to tell his friends that he had at present thirteen causes in hand, but was only going to ‘move in’ seven of them this session. When anxious for a consultation on any of his affairs, he would set out from his native burgh at the time when other people were going to bed, and reaching Edinburgh at four in the morning, would go about the town ringing the bells of the principal advocates, in the vain hope of getting one to rise and listen to him, to the infinite annoyance of many a poor serving-girl, and no less of the Town-guard, into whose hands he generally fell.

Another specimen of the class was Campbell of Laguine, who had perhaps been longer at law than any man of modern times. He was a store-farmer in Caithness, and had immense tracts of land under lease. When he sold his wool, he put the price in his pocket (no petty sum), and came down to waste it in the Court of Session. His custom—an amusing example of method in madness—was to pay every meal which he made at the inns on the road double, that he might have a gratis meal on his return, knowing he would not bring a cross away in his pocket from the courts of justice. Laguine’s figure was very extraordinary. His legs were like two circumflexes, both curving outward in the same direction; so that, relative to his body, they took the direction of the blade of a reaping-hook, supposing the trunk of his person to be the handle. These extraordinary legs were always attired in Highland trews, as his body was generally in a gray or tartan jacket, with a bonnet on his head; and duly appeared he at the door of the Parliament House, bearing a tin case, fully as big as himself, containing a plan of his farms. He paid his lawyers highly, but took up a great deal of their time. One gentleman, afterwards high in official situation, observed him coming up to ring his bell, and not wishing that he himself should throw away his time or Laguine his fee, directed that he should be denied. Laguine, however, made his way to the lady of the learned counsel, and sitting down in the drawing-room, went at great length into the merits of his cause, and exhibited his plans; and when he had expatiated for a couple of hours, he departed, but not without leaving a handsome fee, observing that he had as much satisfaction as if he had seen the learned counsel himself. He once told a legal friend of the writer that his laird and he were nearly agreed now—there was only about ten miles of country contested betwixt them! When finally this great cause was adjusted, his agent said: ‘Well, Laguine, what will ye do now?’ rashly judging that one who had, in a manner, lived upon law for a series of years would be at a loss how to dispose of himself now. ‘No difficulty there,’ answered Laguine; ‘I’ll dispute your account, and go to law with you!’ Possessed as he was by a demon of litigation, Campbell is said to have been, apart from his disputes, a shrewd and sensible, and, moreover, an honourable and worthy man. He was one of the first who introduced sheep-farming into Ross-shire and Caithness, where he had farms as large as some whole Lowland or English counties; and but for litigation, he had the opportunity of making much money.

A person usually called, from his trade, the Heckler was another Parliament House worthy. He used to work the whole night at his trade; then put on a black suit, curled his hair behind and powdered it, so as to resemble a clergyman, and came forth to attend to the great business of the day at the Parliament House. He imagined that he was deputed by Divine Providence as a sort of controller of the Court of Session; but as if that had not been sufficient, he thought the charge of the General Assembly was also committed to him; and he used to complain that that venerable body was ‘much worse to keep in good order’ than the lawyers. He was a little, smart, well-brushed, neat-looking man, and used to talk to himself, smile, and nod with much vivacity. Part of his lunacy was to believe himself a clergyman; and it was chiefly the Teind Court which he haunted, his object there being to obtain an augmentation of his stipend. The appearance and conversation of the man were so plausible that he once succeeded in imposing himself upon Dr Blair as a preacher, and obtained permission to hold forth in the High Church on the ensuing Sunday. He was fortunately recognised when about to mount the pulpit. Some idle boys about the Parliament House, where he was a constant attendant, persuaded him that, as he held two such dignified offices as his imagination shaped out, there must be some salary attached to them, payable, like others upon the Establishment, in the Exchequer. This very nearly brought about a serious catastrophe; for the poor madman, finding his applications slighted at the Exchequer, came there one day with a pistol heavily loaded to shoot Mr Baird, a very worthy man, an officer of that court. This occasioned the Heckler being confined in durance vile for a long time; though, I think, he was at length emancipated.

Other insane fishers in the troubled waters of the law were the following:

Macduff of Ballenloan, who had two cases before the court at once. His success in the one depended upon his showing that he had capacity to manage his own affairs; and in the other, upon his proving himself incapable of doing so. He used to complain, with some apparent reason, that he lost them both!

Andrew Nicol, who was at law thirty years about a midden-stead—AnglicÉ, the situation of a dunghill. This person was a native of Kinross, a sensible-looking countryman, with a large, flat, blue bonnet, in which guise Kay has a very good portrait of him, displaying, with chuckling pride, a plan of his precious midden-stead. He used to frequent the Register House as well as the courts of law, and was encouraged in his foolish pursuits by the roguish clerks of that establishment, by whom he was denominated Muck Andrew, in allusion to the object of his litigation. This wretched being, after losing property and credit and his own senses in following a valueless phantom, died at last (1817) in Cupar jail, where he was placed by one of his legal creditors.